One month after tornadoes swept through North Texas, their destruction has been measured: about 1,300 homes and businesses damaged or destroyed, according to the state.

It’s much harder to measure destruction undone.

Across the disaster zone, residents and officials report scattered signs of a turning point — that people in hard-hit cities like Lancaster, Arlington and Forney may have finished picking up the pieces of their homes and finally begun to put them back together.

Opal Mauldin Robertson, Lancaster’s city manager, hears it in the questions of residents confused about building codes and grandfather clauses as they prepare to repair or rebuild their properties. She’s heard enough that the city will host a town hall on Thursday evening to give them answers.

“It’s a whole lot different from this time April 3,” Robertson said. “The community has cleaned up, it’s coming together, and now folks are trying to put their lives back in place.”

But how do you measure the progress? How many of Lancaster’s more than 150 seriously damaged homes and businesses are already being repaired or rebuilt? How many never will be?

“I couldn’t begin to tell you,” Robertson said.

You could measure progress, perhaps, by tallying insurance checks, which many homeowners will rely on to rebuild their home.

The Insurance Council of Texas estimates its member companies will pay out $300 million on 25,000 homeowner claims related to the storms. But Mark Hanna, a spokesman for the council, didn’t want to guess how many homeowners had money in hand yet — or how many even knew how much they’d get.

“I don’t have an answer,” he said. “I don’t know if anyone does.”

The federal Office of Disaster Assistance is in charge of administering low-interest loans to tornado victims — up to $200,000 to bridge the gap until the insurance check arrives, or make up the difference if it falls short.

As of Tuesday morning, spokesman Garth MacDonald said, the department had received only 42 completed applications — a rate that was “slow to moderate” compared with other disasters.

“People are thinking their insurance will cover everything,” MacDonald said — adding that it often won’t.

The city of Arlington, with at least 20 uninhabitable homes among the 500 damaged, measures progress by the amount of debris it has hauled away — enough to bury a football field 45 feet deep, officials estimate.

Officials also count more than 319 tornado-related permits issued since the storms, for everything from roofing work to complete rebuilding.

For Gwen Edwards in Lancaster, progress will be marked by the sound of a bulldozer sweeping away her roofless home on South Pepperidge Drive — the first step in rebuilding it. She believes she’s one of few in her neighborhood to already have an insurance check in hand, but still doesn’t know when work will begin.

A few blocks away, Ulyesses Mitchell fears he may mark progress by moving on. He’s pessimistic that his insurance company will give him enough to rebuild his shattered home of 32 years, but he hopes it will be sufficient to pay off his mortgage and buy something else.

So forget, for a moment, trying to measure progress. Sometimes it’s enough to hear it.

About halfway between Edwards’ and Mitchell’s ruined homes, at the end of a half-deserted cul-de-sac, the silence of a Tuesday afternoon was broken by a persistent “tap, tap, tap.”

It was the sound of hammers on a single rooftop.

DISASTER RELIEF TOWN HALL

Where: Lancaster Senior Life Center, 240 Veterans Memorial Pkwy

When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday

What: The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Disaster Assistance will provide information on low-income loans for tornado victims. The Texas Department of Insurance will talk about homeowners’ rights. City officials will explain building-code exceptions that make it easier for victims rebuilding older homes. The Lancaster Outreach Center will talk about a disaster relief fund.

To post a comment, log into your chosen social network and then add your comment below. Your comments are subject to our Terms of Service and the privacy policy and terms of service of your social network. If you do not want to comment with a social network, please consider writing a letter to the editor.